When the Saints Go Marching In
by Zylly
Summary: Jazz speaks about death and his own near death experience


Disclaimer: Transformers, Autobot, Decepticon, Cybertron, and all prominent names and images featured are the copyrights and/or trademarks of Hasbro Inc., and are used here for non-profit entertainment purposes only. ________________________________________________________________________  
  
This isn't somethin' I like to talk about, you know? Least I can count on keepin' this a secret. Can't have 'em thinkin' old Jazz is loosin' his nerve, now can I? But if I don't tell this to somebody, I'm gonna have a glitch. Gotta say, I feel a little silly, talkin' into a little tape recorder, but it's better 'an nothin', better an' tryin' to talk to somebody. They wouldn't understand. They weren't there.  
  
I'm not old like Kup; I'm not even as old as, say, Perceptor, but I've been around the block a few times. I've stared death in the eye and given 'im the old heave ho! You know me, I'm Jazz! I laugh in the face o' danger! I mystify with my feats of daring and my mastery of do!  
  
But you know what? You really wanna know what? These days. man, these days, I'm afraid to die.  
  
Wasn't even loosin' Cybertron that did it to me. I knew we'd get it back sooner or later. Prime said we would and I'd never doubted Prime in all the time I'd been an Autobot.  
  
Wasn't even Prime. Optimus, dyin'. We all knew the risks, Prime more 'an any of us. Prime bein' gone and not even bein' there where he died. it hurt, not bein' there, but there just wasn't time or opportunity. 'Sides, without me an' Cliffjumper, who'd have been runnin' Moon Base 1? Who'd've been right in the path of Unicron?  
  
Us Transformers, we're pretty old, 'cept for those guys we built; even the youngest of us is older than the whole human race. We like to think we've seen it all. That day proved we knew diddly squat.  
  
Seein' a ginormous planet show up in the suburbs of Cybertron tends to get a guy all panicky. Way I hear it, even old One-Eye himself, Grand Decepticon Pooh-Bah Shockwave nearly flipped his mother-board!  
  
Me? I'd never been more scared. Seen a whole lot of wild and wooly stuff before, but nothin' like that! Cliffjumper wanted to stay an' fight. Like we coulda fought that! 'Fore we knew it though, Unicron's swallowing us up like pop rocks! I would've though eatin' a moon'd give me indigestion, but no such luck for us.  
  
I've still got nightmares about what happened inside that thing. First fallin' like we were never gonna stop, then being grabbed by about a jillion tentacles, poked, prodded, and carted around like a sack of meat. Poor Cliffjumper. or maybe I should say 'lucky.' He got conked out durin' all of this. He don't hardly remember any of it. But I remember. Seems Unicron didn't just want to eat us, he wanted to see what made us tick. I can still feel all the wires movin' around inside of me, can still feel 'em in my head sometimes. Things went through darn near every bit of me. An' then he started scannnin', scannin' so hard it hurt. Scannin' so hard I knew he was lookin' at my insides an' laughin'. If I hadn't lost my radio in the fall, I'd've given him a blast he'd never forget!  
  
Worst part though. The worst part was the hangin', sapped of most of my energy, not even able to try an' escape. I felt about as sick as we can get. I felt violated. I felt like my insides had been brought out and marked up with a smelly black felt tip. An' the screams. I can still hear the screams. Knowin' there was nothin' I could do, and wantin' with all my spark to be doin' somethin'. I didn't want none of us to die, not me, not Cliffjumper, not Bumblebee, not nobody. But Spike. Spike didn't deserve to be there. We never shoulda gotten him into this war.  
  
An' I thought about all as I was gonna miss: music, movies, Blaster, Hound, so many of my friends, the next Keyboard Fusion single, seein' Ultra Magnus kick the Deception's skidplates clear to Rygel Four.  
  
An' I was all set to take the big acid Stairway to Heaven an' here comes Daniel, all decked out in one of Spike's old exo-suits, right in the belly of the beast. An' I fell, an' Spike fell, an' Cliffjumper fell, an' Bumblebee fell, an' I thought it was the end of me.  
  
And the little squirt did it. He saved us.  
  
But I ain't never been so close to dyin', not in all my seven million years. There's too much I don't wanna leave behind. Too much I still gotta live for. Too many 'cons left to bust an' too many new tunes to scope.  
  
But that's why I live for the moment. Life's a big party, but you never know where it's gonna end. You could just be goin' along and then bam! That's it, end of story, end of track 16, you're marching up to heaven and knockin' on the door. You're one with the Matrix. You're cosmic gone.  
  
An' I just ain't ready for that yet. This Autobot's got a lot of years left in 'im and he intends to enjoy every minute of it. I got a second- chance, an' I ain't gonna waste it bein' mopey.  
  
I may not wanna die anytime soon. But I ain't gonna die with any regrets. An' when I do finally check out, you can be sure I'll be goin' with a smile on my face. 


End file.
